A quick bite of legal news!

Case Blurb: United States v. Antoine Jones

The Supreme Court unanimously decided on January 23, 2012 that attaching a GPS tracker to a car is considered an encroachment on a protected area and thus would require a search warrant. In this particular case, because the police had not obtained a search warrant when they attached a GPS tracker to Antoine Jones’ Jeep, the Justices held that the evidence and information obtained from the GPS tracker was a violation of the Fourth Amendment and considered an unreasonable search and seizure.

Above the Law has a quick post about this monumental decision available here. The Washington Post writes about the warrant requirement for GPS trackers here. The original Supreme Court decision is available in PDF format here. My friend, Patrick McGrath, published a law journal article on GPS tracking with the Journal of High Technology Law, and the article is available here.

It will be interesting to see what other electronic devices require a warrant under the Fourth Amendment once this decision is implemented into the court system.